Lone Flowers
by L's lollipop
Summary: They had always been alone. Maybe a crazy series of events will let them bloom together. first FF of pairing -- UlquiorraXHanataro rated T to be safe, pure innocent fluff. oneshot for now.


Hana sighed and rested his head in his hands, his elbows propped up on the bar. All around him, deafening metal roared and people screamed at the top of their lungs, barely audible over the music.

Hana really wished he had a set of ear plugs, but even if he'd had a pair, he wouldn't been allowed to actually wear them.

A group of three already quite drunk men and one woman walked (staggered) up to his bar and demanded beers. Hana considered whether or not to serve them, they were extremely drunk, but he was much more likely to get in trouble for not giving them drinks than for handing them over, so he told the voice in his head telling him not to and gave them 4 beers.

He sighed again and this time just rested his chin on the bar's sticky black surface.

Hana had been trapped in the "mini valley of screams" as he had come to think of it, for almost a month. It felt like several years. (reference to a bleach movie, but i dont remember which one)

Soul Society had received intelligence that hollows, possibly even low level espada came to this bar, and so Hana had been dispatched, with the idea that his previous experiences in the human world might help in this mission.

Apparently, someone had missed the hell butterfly that he had been working in a corner store, not an underground death-metal bar.

During his entire stay, there had not been one hollow-related incident worth even mentioning in a report.

On the other hand, there were nearly daily fist fights, which sometimes had a knife or two thrown in, run ins with out of hand customers (which usually got violent) and of course Hana and the other staff having to clean stuff that they didn't recognize and didn't want to know anything more about.

Of course he had been given a human body which blocked out his reitsu, but sometimes he was almost tempted to let a little leak in the hopes that a hollow would come and he could then leave.

Without lifting his head off of the bar, he followed the group of people who had just come in with his eyes.

There was something... odd, about them. If odd could be used to distinguish this group from everyone else in the bar, that was.

Hana focused on them, and positive, they were not human. However, they were hiding their reitsu exceedingly well, so he couldn't tell what they were.

The group split apart, or, Hana guessed, it had been two groups of people all along.

One group, who he now noticed did actually have no reitsu, came up to the bar and banged loudly for beer, as was typical. The other two, both had cloaks and hoods on, moved away from him and to a table in the back corner.

That was unusual, everyone usually came and got beer.

Hana debated what to do next. If they were this good at hiding their reitsu, they were probably fairly powerful espada, if they were espada at all.

Something about both of them though, made Hana very uneasy, and his first impulse would be to clock out now and dash back to Soul Society and tell them. Tell them... what exactly? He wondered.

Hana grabbed a menu and slid out from behind the bar, headed for the table in the back.

By the time he'd gotten there, the larger of the two was already trying to hit on two girls at the table next to theirs. The girls were both giggling, batting their eyelashes at the man and sitting in such a way that their already low cut tops, revealed even more cleavage.

Hana rolled his eyes, the girls here were perhaps the worst part, they (usually) didn't try to hit on him, or they had to be really drunk to, but he hated having to watch them in their tiny outfits, coming onto 5 guys at once.

Hana reached the table, "ummm... excuse me", he said, putting on his best cute face, both men looked up, Hana had to fight the urge not to gasp, they were both espada, powerful looking ones, judging by the fact that on one he could he none of his mask, and the other only had a tiny piece of it visible along his jaw. Catching himself, Hana went on.

"Would you two like to order a drink?" he asked, proffering the menu to the smaller one. The smaller one reached up a lily-white hand and took the menu from Hana, but then set it down on the table in front of the larger man, who winked at the girls and then picked it up.

The smaller one then looked up at Hana and a bit more of his hood fell back.

Hana nearly gasped again. He was beautiful, really, stunningly beautiful. He had the purest white skin, and huge, emerald green eyes, with green streaks running down his cheeks.

He looked at Hana with an odd expression, and Hana tried desperately not to stare, while kicking himself.

_He's an ESPADA! _He told himself firmly, not able to tear his gaze away from the green eyes.

"Hey brat," the other espada said, his voice yanking Hana's mind back to reality.

"Yes, sir?" Hana asked, just as the menu hit him in the face. Used to this, he simply caught it, or tried to. He bent over and picked it up.

The larger espada laughed. Hana blushed as he straightened up.

"You're a clumsy one, aren't ya?" mocked the larger one, "well bring me sake and don't drop or spill it!"

Hana was just bowing and turning away when the smaller one finally spoke, causing Hana to turn back around, "Grimmjow," he said calmly, "there's no need to be mean", he looked back up at Hana and gave him an almost kind look.

Hana felt his stomach forming knots.

_What on earth is going on... _he thought frantically. He hadn't experienced his stomach doing this before.

He tried to wordlessly expression his thanks to the green eyed espada, before turning away and hurrying back to the bar to get the sake.

He wasn't sure how many cups to bring either... and because the bar almost never served sake, it took him quite a while to find the bottles.

Grimmjow turned to Ulquiorra, frowning slightly, "what was up with you?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" Ulquiorra asked.

"The way you were looking at that bar-brat, and sticking up for him...." Grimmjow made a 'what the hell?!' gesture.

Their conversation was interrupted by Hana jogging back with the sake, and two sake cups.

"Here you are," he said, placing them on the table and bowing before scampering away and tripping on his own feet.

Grimmjow poured himself a cup of sake and continued to stare expectedly at Ulquiorra, waiting for an answer.

Ulquiorra finally shrugged casually, "I don't think I did anything unusual."

"Yeah you did!" Grimmjow countered, "I don't care if you noticed you were doing it or not, you still fucking were!"

"Well..." Ulquiorra said slowly, "he is quite cute."

Grimmjow, who had been taking a sip of sake, sprayed it all over himself and Ulquiorra, who began dabbing up the sake on his face with the hem of his cloak, looking disgusted, although the look on his face was nothing compared to the look of shock on Grimmjow's face.

"When the fuck were you _planning _on telling me you were gay!?" He half yelled, although over the loud music, no one really heard him, except for the girls at the near by table, both of whose eyebrows shot up with a look of delight. (A.N. we are fangirls, we are everywhere.)

"I'm not", Ulquiorra said rather quietly, only because of his above-human hearing could Grimmjow understand what he'd said. (A.N. ummm... im not actually sure if espada can hear extra well, but lets just pretend they can...)

"Really now?" Grimmjow said sarcastically, "cause I think that most of the time when guys think other guys are _cute _it usually means they are."

Ulquiorra looked at Grimmjow impassively, making Grimmjow snarl with annoyance.

"Look! I don't have a problem with it! Hell! Why don't you try talking to him... maybe you two will hit it off!"

Ulquiorra actually looked mildly curious, "think so?" he asked.

"Sure. Why not?"

"You know a lot more about this than me..." Ulquiorra mumbled.

Grimmjow smirked and nodded, looking very pleased with himself. He punched Ulquiorra lightly in the arm.

"I knew you'd finally come out of that emotionless shell you were trying to hide behind! Glad I was here to see it..."

Ulquiorra blinked and looked confused.

Grimmjow chuckled. "I've always known you had feelings, just like the rest of us, but you do a great job at hiding them."

Ulquiorra still looked a bit non-plussed, but Grimmjow decided to drop it.

"Just talk to him, if you want to, that is." he instructed Ulquiorra.

"Alright... But what about?" Ulquiorra asked.

"Well that's the hard part. You aren't the type to just say stuff to get in someone's pants. Nevermind!" Grimmjow said quickly, noticing the expression on Ulquiorra's face. "It's a problem," he went on, "you know nothing about him. But you have the advantage that I'm pretty sure at least that he was checking you out..."

Ulquiorra blinked, "he was?"

"Think so." Grimmjow replied, annoyingly casually, gulping down sake.

Ulquiorra fiddled with his hands in his lap, glancing almost nervously at the bar, behind which was Hana, who was being accosted by several scary looking bikers, and doing his best to keep smiling and not looking scared.

Grimmjow turned his head and watched Ulquiorra watching Hana. He whistled softly under his breath.

Ulquiorra turned and looked at Grimmjow, the questioning look back on his face.

"You look like you've been hit hard… damn fast too!" Grimmjow said.

"Hit?"

Grimmjow let out an exasperated sigh, and put down his sake cup, and turning in his seat so he was fully facing Ulquiorra an actually quite serious expression on his face.

"Look, Ulquiorra," Grimmjow began, "I've been in love. I know it may be hard for you to believe, but I have. Badly! And it's not what you'd expect."

"I'm not in love!" Ulquiorra exclaimed shrilly, looking, to Grimmjow's amusement, slightly panicked.

Grimmjow chuckled, "I know that… you don't fall in love after just looking at someone." Grimmjow sighed again, and looked, an odd expression, like sadness and embarrassment, on his face. "But take it from me, your heart, I now I've got proof that you've got one, works in damn weird ways, and you can get pretty whacked just from meeting someone. It happened to me, don't take it lightly."

Ulquiorra nodded, seeming to consider what Grimmjow was telling him.

"I can't really tell you what you're feeling, but I can tell you what happened to me, and give you the best advice I can."

Ulquiorra nodded again, although he was perhaps most surprised at the level of concern that Grimmjow was showing, Grimmjow normally acted as though he hated him. Which, perhaps he did. People could hate each other and also care for each other.

Grimmjow went on, "and the best advice I can give you now is to at least talk to him, nothing _really _bad can come of it, and a lot of good could come of it. He looks like a nice kid, too nice for me, but whatever."

"But what about?" Ulquiorra persisted, "you said yourself that there is barely anything to talk to him about, since I don't know him."

"People never start out knowing each other, something gets them talking though, and if they have something in common, they'll usually find they have something to talk about." Grimmjow instructed rather sagely. "Here, let me handle the first part," he offered when Ulquiorra made no move to try to talk to Hana.

Ulquiorra opened his mouth to try and stop Grimmjow, but too late.

"OI!!! You! Bar-Brat!" even over the blasting music, Grimmjow's voice was heard through out the whole bar. Hana's head snapped up from where it had been resting on the bar again. He blinked, located the source of the voice, and scampered over, as usual, nearly tripping in the process.

"Yes sirs?" he asked when he got to the table. "Bring more sake, and another cup", Grimmjow said. Hana's face screwed up in confusion, but he hurried back to the bar and returned with another bottle and another cup. He placed them in front of Grimmjow and was just bowing and backing up, when Grimmjow called out, "hey! Where do you think you're going?"

"Ummm…" Hana muttered awkwardly.

"You're going to stay and have a drink with us!" Grimmjow declared, and reached across Ulquiorra to pat the seat next to the 4th Espada.

Hana's mouth opened in protest, but the look on Grimmjow's face shut him up. Baffled out of his mind, and definitely a bit afraid, these were _Espada, _Hana slid down onto the seat to Ulquiorra, both Hana and Ulquiorra shooting uncomfortable glances at each other's knees, and both almost visibly squirming.

Grimmjow poured both Hana and Ulquiorra cups of sake, and another for himself of course, and proffered the cups, giving both Ulquiorra and Hana looks that plainly said 'drink it or die'. Both reluctantly took their cups.

"Kampai!" Grimmjow declared, banging his own cup into the other twos and spilling about half, "to fun nights out and meeting new friends!" Grimmjow drained his cup. Hana and Ulquiorra touched their cups together without looking at each other. Both of them muttered back something along the lines of what Grimmjow had said, and then drank their sake.

Hana had been feeling incredibly uncomfortable, and afraid, confused and uncertain, not to mention feeling distinctly queasy in a way that did not feel like his gigai was getting sick.

But the moment the sake slid down his throat, everything tense and anxious about his situation slid away to be replaced by happy thoughts, and images of rainbows and butterflies. His eyes slid mildly out of focus and he smiled up at Ulquiorra, uncoordinated thoughts about how beautiful he was swimming around in his head.

Ulquiorra also felt similarly fuzzywarmed from the sake, but nothing compared to Hana, whose head was swaying slightly side to side.

Grimmjow nudged Ulquiorra and whispered, "I think he's drunk".

Ulquiorra raised an eyebrow in reply, which clearly read, '_oh really now?' _

"it could be a good thing or a bad thing", Grimmjow whispered back. "Either way I don't think we should give him anymore".

Ulquiorra nodded.

"So kid", Grimmjow said, leaning across Ulquiorra and poking him, "what's your name?"

"H-Hanataro", Hana replied, his speech slightly slurred, "but, but my f-friends ca-call me Hana." He smiled at Ulquiorra, who felt his stomach flutter. Hana was adorable, drunk or no.

"So, Hana, how come you ended up working in a dump like this?" Grimmjow went on.

This wasn't good for Hana, who was just sober enough to realize he couldn't tell them the truth, and just too drunk to not be able to think of a good cover story.

Hana sat stupefied, although very cutely stupefied, for a few moments. Both Espada looked at him expectantly.

"I, err, I got dis job 'cause… cause, it was the only job I could find!"

Hana said, nodding as earnestly as he could under the circumstances.

Grimmjow smirked, "you know what?" he said, "Ulquiorra was right, you are cute. I like ya." He drained his last cup of sake while Hana was blinked confusedly, and very cutely. "Lets get outta here!" Grimmjow said suddenly, much to the surprise of the other two.

"B-but", Hana stammered.

"No buts!" Grimmjow said, holding up a finger warningly. "only 'butts'", he whispered in Ulquiorra's ear, who blushed furiously.

Hana was looking around almost frantically, seemingly looking for an escape route.

Grimmjow got up and Ulquiorra followed suit, a bit more reluctantly.

Hana was still in his seat. Grimmjow came and stood in front of him.

Hana gulped at the look on Grimmjow's face.

Grimmjow reached down and bodily picked up Hana, who was honestly too out of it to coherently protest or resist.

With Grimmjow carrying Hana and Ulquiorra following, and most of the bar gawking after them, they left and emerged onto the street.

"Sooo…" asked Ulquiorra.

"This way!" Grimmjow said loudly, energetically thrusting a finger indicating which way they should go.

"Why?" sighed Ulquiorra.

"You'll see!" said Grimmjow in a singsong voice, setting off down the street still holding Hana, who looked resigned to his fate.

They walked for a few blocks and ended up in a slightly better part of town. The nightlife part.

Grimmjow made straight for a specific club, called "Spinning Heads", and they all headed inside. The bouncers looking at them curiously but deciding not to comment or ask.

As soon as they were inside, Grimmjow peeled off the cloak he had been wearing and turned out to be wearing a tight, white colored outfit underneath it. He tugged Ulquiorra's cloak off as well, and then grabbed him by the collar and literally dragged him onto the dance floor. Once they were on it, he dropped Hana and grabbed the nearest and prettiest and began dancing with her. she didn't protest and began grinding against him. He smirked sideways at Ulquiorra and then moved away from them, not before winking at Hana.

Hana's head, suitably, was spinning, the flashing and pulsating lights weren't helpful for anyone drunk. He stood there in awkward silence for a few moments with Ulquiorra, both sneaking glances at each other, blushing, and looking at the floor again.

Finally Ulquiorra grabbed Hana's hand and pulled him off of the dance floor. Still holding his hand, he walked him back out of the club. Hana was relieved, he knew he couldn't dance like this, he couldn't under the best circumstances.

As they walked down the street, Hana realized his hand was still in Ulquiorra's. and then he did something he _never _would have done sober. He cautiously moved his hand so his fingers were interlaced with Ulquiorra's.

Ulquiorra blinked, then smiled to himself. Hana was so adorable, he was making Ulquiorra's heart flutter, something he had never thought was possible before tonight. There was something special about Hana; he seemed to melt away people's defenses. Maybe because he seemed so vulnerable himself he brought peoples walls and barriers down.

Ulquiorra was sure now that he wanted to get closer to Hana, his dilemma now, was how to go about that. He almost regretted leaving Grimmjow, he could have given him advice.

At the end of the street was a park. It had a children's playground in it, as well a grove of trees. The moon, which was nearly full, was visible in gaps between the trees. It was beautifully, although eerie.

At the sight of the playground Hana smiled and set off at a trot, leading Ulquiorra behide him by the hand. Hana lead Ulquiorra to the swings and plunked down on one, and gesturing to Ulquiorra to sit down on the one.

Ulquiorra hesitantly sat down next to Hana, still holding his hand. Together, they looked up at the moon.

"its really beautiful, isn't it?" asked Hana abruptly, and surprisingly soberly.

"yes, it is", Ulquiorra wistfully. "it never looks like this where I live."

Hana looked at him curiously, "where are you from?"

Ulquiorra squeezed his hand, "far away".

They sat in silence for another moment, not entirely an awkward silence though.

Finally Hana turned and looked at Ulquiorra, he had sobered up a great deal, the night air was chilly and was helping a great deal. He took a deep breath, "ummm…" he began.

Ulquiorra turned and looked him.

"ummm…" Hana tried again, it was a lot harder with those emerald eyes now fixed on him. He looked at his shoes and the sand under them.

Ulquiorra smiled again, "its alright" he said, "this happened so suddenly, I don't know what to say either. I've never been attracted to someone like this before."

Even in the moonlight, Ulquiorra could tell that Hana was blushing scarlet.

"I err, thank you." Hana said breathlessly.

"For what?" Ulquiorra asked.

"Well, for saying that about me. No ones ever said something like that to me before."

Ulquiorra smiled, "you're welcome" he said, "I don't know what it is about you."

Hana swing his feet and watched them. "I'm really" he said, "when I first saw you I thought you were the most beautiful person I'd ever seen. I could never have said anything on my own to you."

Ulquiorra looked at him sharply. "You really mean that?" he asked in a soft voice.

Hana nodded, looking incredibly awkward.

Ulquiorra, acting a sudden and crazy impulse reached over and cupped Hana's face in his hand and turned it so he was facing him, then brought his lips to Hana's.

Hana's eyes were owl-wide, and then closed as he melted and began kissing Ulquiorra back.

Ulquiorra reached around Hana with both arms and easily picked him up, moving onto his lap so he could kiss him better. Hana was glad he did, he felt like a mushy puddle from Ulquiorra's surprisingly talented kissing.

Hana couldn't believe what he was doing. Sitting in the middle of a park, kissing an _Espada _that he met barely more than an hour ago. And never feeling happier than he had right at that moment.

Not to mention skipping work.

He brought both his arms around Ulquiorra's neck and leaned against him.

It was a sweet, short kiss. No trace of lust present in it.

Hana looked into Ulquiorra's emerald eyes and Ulquiorra looked into Hana's blue-green ones. Then Hana smiled his adorable little smile and curled up against Ulquiorra's chest with a happy sigh. Ulquiorra wrapped both his arms around his Hana and together they gazed up at the moon.

_yeah I _FINALLY _got this done. I had some writers block on my story "better than cake" (which is sucking btw) so I wrote this. its a oneshot for now... but I have to admit that I really like this story and pairing so if I get some reviewers saying they liked it and would want more Id definitely think hard about it. let me know what you thought either way. im really excited to have done the first FF for this pairing and want to know what people think. _

_also, if youd like more and have ideas please share those, I wouldnt really be sure where to take this story. .;;;_  
_thanks a bunch!!! =^^=_

_LsLollipop  
_


End file.
